MILEY CYRUS LATEST

The lights dim, and that's when the screaming starts. Thousands of preteen girls watch excitedly as a cage of video screens descends from the ceiling playing a silhouette of Disney star Hannah Montana.

When it lands, the blond superstar emerges in a sparkling silver dress and high boots, and the screaming gets even louder. That's when a man offers me $20 for two sets of earplugs, which I just give him for free. I'm sure it's the only thing he didn't pay for all night.

On the hit TV show that shares her character's name, 14-year-old Miley Cyrus (daughter of "Achy-Breaky" country star Billy Ray Cyrus) plays a brown-haired high school student named Miley Stewart who is secretly the blond-haired pop sensation Montana.

The premise of the show is reflected in many of the Montana songs, like the opening number "Rock Star" in which she sings about how she's a strong but shy girl who "might even be a rock star."

Cyrus plays her Montana persona perfectly. She owns the stage, and moves from one song to the next without a stutter or stumble. At 14, she has a stage presence that many performers two or three times her age don't.

When all else fails she strikes her rock-star pose by locking one knee, bending forward at the waist, looking out to the crowd and thrusting her right hand in the air, palm up, making a "gimme more applause" gesture.

The Jonas Brothers, a trio of up-and-coming rock stars that also is being groomed by the Disney machine, opened the show. They have guest-starred on "Hannah Montana" and have their own show in the works for the Disney Channel.

Dressed in garage rock outfits, they strut around the stage spouting rock star clichés. "Hey Seattle," they shouted, "where are my ladies at?" Their songs are harmless pop-rock, both enthusiastic and insincere, and the boys play their rock-star roles with deadly seriousness. It's quite funny, actually.

To close the show, Cyrus rises up on a platform at the end of the runway wearing a leather vest over a white shirt, a wide belt and bedazzled black leggings with white boots. A fake wind blows through her hair.

As the other half of the Best of Both Worlds Tour, Cyrus feels more like a persona than Hannah Montana. The songs are more guitar-driven, the outfits more adult, and the lyrics imply a string of bad boyfriends -- but it feels like imaginary drama taken from high school poetry, as if she's pretending to be older than she is. Only her country-influenced song, "I Miss You," dedicated to her dead grandfather, has a level of sincerity missing from the rest of the set.

By the end of the concert, the kids in the audience seemed tired. It wasn't until they got outside that they got all excited again, flaunting their $30 Hannah Montana shirts, their $20 programs, their $15 laminates, and $10 wristbands.